
Address Delivered before the 



Trustees, Faculty and Students 



of tHi 



Albany La^w School 



at i\lbany, Ne-w "YorK 



McRinley Day 



Monday, January 29th. 1912 




by tKe 

HON. GEORGi: F. ARREL 

Counsellor at La'W 

Youn^sto-wn, Ohio 



Miscellaneous 
printed matter 



Address Delivered before tKe 



Trustees, Faculty and Students 



>f tH< 



Albany Law ScKool 



at -Albany, Ne"w "YorK 



McRinley Day 



Monday. Janviary 29th, 1912 




by tHe 

HON. GEORGi: T. ARREL 

Counsellor at La-w^ 

Youn^stown, OKio 



u 



dit\ 



.A 



^^ 



TMP92-007882 



McKINLEY DAY 



Address delivered before the Trustees, Faculty and Students o( the Albany Law 
School at Albany, New York. 



First and foremost, I desire, in this presence, to publicly 
express my sincere thanks to the President and to each indi- 
vidual member of the Board of Trustees of The Albany Law 
School for the very kind and quite complimentary invitation 
which I received from them not long since to come hither on 
this occasion, and to deliver an address on the life and public 
services of the most distinguished graduate of the Law 
School, — the anniversary of wihose natal day we are convened 
to celebrate, In accepting, and in connection with that invi- 
tation, the only regret I have experienced is due to the feeling 
which I have of my inability toi satisfy the just expectations 
of those who gave it, and to meet the reasonable requirements 
of such an address. 

It is now two score years and almost five since I received 
my graduating degree from The Albany Law School, and I 
wish publicly to pay tribute to the honored memory of each 
one of the three noble founders of that Law School, and to 
acknowledge my indebtedness to them for the benefits which 
I received from their unselfish labors in my behalf. However 
little or much I may have been able to accomplish, at the bar 
or on the bench, during those intervening years, I am fully 
persuaded that that little or much, whichever it may be, is 
more than it would have been had I not received that early 
training here. If it be true, as has been said, that in the 
ashes of the law the sparks of all sciences may be seen, then 
there would seem to be as much need for colleges in which is 
taught the science of the law as there is for colleges in which 



-are taught other sciences. The opportunities in law offices 
for young gentlemen to^ fit themselves for the bar, and for the 
proper discharge of the onerous duties falling upon them 
after admission, are by no means so great as they formerly 
were. The growth in popular favor of law schools for the 
preparation of young gentlemen for the bar, and the increase 
in the necessity for them, have been great in the last twenty- 
five years, and I am much pleased to know that my Alma 
Mater — The Albany Law School — in point of efficiency 
stands in the forefront of law schools, and is doing excellent 
work. 

On the 29th day of January in the year of Grace, 1843, 
William McKinley was born in the then small hamlet — now 
thriving manufacturing city — of Niles, in Trumbull county, 
Ohio, and there were passed the first eleven years of his life. 
During this period of his young life there is nothing either in 
general, or in particular to record of him, except that when 
at the proper age he attended the public schools of the place. 
In 1854 his father's family moved to the village of Poland, 
in the adjoining county of Mahoning, where it was thought he, 
with the other younger members of the family, could take 
advantage of the excellent educational facilities which were 
afforded in the then somewhat famous schools of that village. 

Here the future president spent his time and his energies 
in acquiring the rudiments of an education, and all uncon- 
sciously, in part at least, laying the foundation for his future 
greatness, until the whole country was suddenly aroused and 
■electrified by a determined assault on the flag in the early 
springtime of 1861. 

During this early period of his young life, it is related of 
him that he exhibited great earnestness and zeal in the prose- 
cution of the work before him, and that he rarely ever idled 
away many moments of time. He was prepared to enter 
college, and in fact did enter Allegheny College in Mead- 
ville, Pennsylvania, where he pursued his studies only for a 
few months, when rapidly transpiring events turned his 



energies in another direction, and thus was ended his academic- 
education. 

At this time, and at the very opening of the great struggle 
for the preservation of constitutional liberty on this Conti- 
nent, he heard and heeded his country's call to duty. In the 
early summer of 1861, when he was in point of years not 
many months past seventeen, he enlisted as a private soldier 
in the Twenty-third Regiment of Ohio Voluntary Infantry. 
In that service of his country he continued till open and 
active hostilities ceased between the contending forces, and 
peace was declared in 1865, when he returned to his home 
and to bis family, in the village of Poland, with the rank 
of Major, by which title his intimate friends were ever after- 
wards most delighted to address him. In this branch of 
public service, it bias been well said of him that he faith- 
fully performed the work assigned to him, whether in camp, 
on the weary march, or on the firing line, and always here, 
as everywhere, by his kindly disposition and buoyant spirits he 
made friends of those who came in contact with him. He 
evidently entered upon and remained in this service through 
a deep and conscientious sense of public duty, and here may 
be very fittingly applied to him the thought so beautifully 
expressed by Emerson, in these words : 

" So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
So near is God to man, 
When duty whispers low, thou must, 
The youth rephes, I can." 

At the close of the Civil War he returned to his family 
and his home in the village of Poland, and there he remained 
for about one year. On -his return he chose the law as a 
profession, and at once began preparation for admission to 
the Bar. For one year or a little more he industriously pur- 
sued his legal studies under the guidance of Hon. Chas. E. 
Glidden, who was then a resident of the village and an 
eminent Judge on the Trial Bench of Ohio. Early in the 



autumn of 1866 he came here and entered the Law Depart- 
ment of the University, as a student in the class of '66-'67, 
and here he remained until the following year, when he re- 
turned to his home in the village of Poland. On examina- 
tion, he was promptly admitted, by the District Court of 
Trumbull county, tO' the Bar of Ohio, and duly commissioned 
to practice his profession in all the courts of that State. The 
precise date of his admission to the Bar is not readily ascer- 
tainable for the reason that subsequent thereto the records 
of the District Court of Trumbull county, between '61 and 
'^2, were unfortunately destroyed by an accidental fire. It 
is known, however, that his admission occurred at sometime 
during the first half of '67. During all the time spent here 
in preliminary preparation for the arduous labors and exact- 
ing duties of his chosen profession, he was painstaking, 
thoughtful, and very industrious, but never despondent. He 
gave the closest possible attention to the lectures as they 
were being delivered, taking full notes, and, as near as prac- 
ticable, the exact language of any proposition stated. The 
method then pursued in class was to state general principles 
pertinent to the subject of the lecture, and then to give 
numerous citations of authorities from text books, and from 
adjudicated cases, in support of and illustrating the principle 
announced, and the students were expected and required to 
examine these authorities between class hours, and at proper 
times to answer questions propounded by the professor in 
reference to those authorities. In the performance of this 
part of his work, he was exceedingly industrious, and in the 
late afternoon of almost every day he could be found in the 
law library, to which the_ students of the class had access, 
studiously reading and examining these authorities. Speak- 
ing from personal experience, I here wish to record the fact, 
in passing, that much benefit was derived from that method. 
It materially aided the student in teaching him where to 
look for, and how to find, authority on any given question. 
Furthermore, it taught him to discriminate and how to select 



the authorities most pertinent to the question. In these days 
when authority of high standing may be found both in text- 
books and in reports, on either side of almost any controverted 
legal question, this power of discrimination is all important. 

At the opening of the term, by common consent, the hour 
to retire was fixed at ten o'clock, but before the close of 
the term it was no uncommon occurrence to see him hard 
at work after the clock in the church steeple had tolled the 
hour of midnight. He frequently took active part in the 
discussion of legal questions in Moot Court, conducted either 
by one of the teachers or by the students themselves. His 
personal presence then was, as always afterwards, attractive, 
and his voice quite musical. These important features of a 
successful public speaker became more fully developed later 
in life, and remained with him to the end. In his room 
and at the dining table in his boarding house at No. 36 Jay 
street, his demeanor was faultless, and in all these closer rela- 
tions of student life his companionship was most charming, 
and the whole is now a sacred memory. 

Standing here I have vividly before me a mental picture 
of a scene long since enacted. Methinks I can see our class 
of '66-'67 assembled in the lecture room on the corner of 
Jay and Eagle streets in this city. My room-mate is sitting 
by my side. On every feature of his bright and well-moulded 
countenance is depicted an earnest and thoughtful desire for 
the acquisition of knowledge, and for full preparation for the 
faithful discharge of the duties of his future life, whatever 
those duties might prove to be. The class, as a whole, is 
intently listening to and taking copious notes from a lecture 
which is being delivered, either by Prof. Dean, Judge Parker 
or Senator Harris. Alas! how few, or how many, of all the 
actors in that scene remain, I know not, but this I do know, 
that many of them are now on the other side. When the 
sun is well past the meridian, and as the shadows lengthen on 
the journey, " how strange it seems with so much gone " of 
one's young and happy life, " to still live on." 



Almost immediately upon his admission to the Bar he 
established, and, to the day of his tragic death, maintained 
his residence in Canton, Stark county, Ohio. On account of 
that fact, in part at least, that city became and is known to 
the whole world, and its fate in that regard has been attrib- 
uted, by some, to the " tender sentiment." With enthusiasm 
and great industry he prosecuted the practice lof his pro- 
fession, until he was elected, in 1876, from the Eighteenth 
Ohio Congressional District to a seat in the Lower House of 
Congress, when his career at the Bar was practically ended. 
During this period he v/as elected once to the office of Prose- 
cuting Attorney of Stark county for a term of two years, 
but failed of an election to a second term by reason of the 
fact that the county at that time, in political sentiment, was 
very closely divided between the two leading political parties. 
How well he would have succeeded had he continued his 
labors at the Bar remains, to some extent, an unsolved 
problem, for his experience along that line of intellectual 
work was of short duration. However, judging from what 
we know of him now, it is reasonably safe to conclude that 
he would have become distinguished as a lawyer. True it 
may be, perhaps, by temperament and by mental make up, he 
was better fitted for a distinguished career as a statesman 
rather than as a lawyer. 

His public career as Congressman began with the opening 
session of the Forty-fifth Congress, in 1877, and ended with 
the second session of the Fifty-first Congress on the 4th day 
of March, 1891, being a period of fourteen years, during all 
of which time, or practically so, he faithfully served the people 
of his district, and of the whole country, in that capacity. 
His seat was once during that period successfully contested, — 
the House being largely Democratic, but so well did the 
opposition recognize the great usefulness of his public ser- 
vices, as a member of that body, and so personally popular 
was he with all its members, that he was permitted to retain 
the seat and discharge the duties of the office to the very 
close of that term. 



Early in his public career as a Congressman, he learned 
that a man can often do better work and render much more 
efficient service by specializing, to some extent, and he, there- 
fore, took up and carefully studied the subject of the best 
method of raising revenue to defray the expenses of the 
national government. As a result of that study, he very soon 
became — and so remained to the end — a very ardent advo- 
cate and supporter of the policy of protection to American 
capital and American labor employed on the farm, and in the 
manufacturing and otht;r industries of the country. In the 
discussion of public questions, both in the House and on the 
rostrum, he never used invectives or resorted to personalities, 
but assiduously devoted his attention and his efforts to a 
fair and candid consideration of the question on hand, with 
a view alone to convincing the judgment of his hearers, and 
of bringing them to his way of thinking. On the hustings, 
where he was in more direct connection with his constituents 
and the people at large, his manner and methods of handling 
his subject were particularly attractive and persuasive. His 
style of oratory, the rather musical tones of his voice, and 
his splendid personal presence, very materially added to the 
effectiveness of his speech. In 1889 he was appointed Chair- 
man of the Committee on Ways and Means, and this con- 
stituted him in form that which he had been, in fact, for 
some time before, — the political leader on his side of the 
House. He at once proceeded to the careful preparation of 
the Revenue Act of 1890, which bore his honored name, and 
its successful passage through the House and the Senate 
substantially completed his conspicuous public services in the 
Congress of the United States. His long service in the 
House was of great benefit to him when he was called later 
in life to administer the office of Chief Executive. His per- 
sonal popularity with the members of that great body, and 
his knowledge, acquired by practical experience, of their 
methods of transacting public business, enabled him, in the 
most part, to be in accord with them. 



lO 

On the nth day of March, 1890, the General Assembly 
of Ohio, which was then Democratic, passed an Act appor- 
tioning the State into Congressional Districts, and by that 
Act his home county of Stark was taken out of the Eighteenth 
and placed in the Sixteenth Congressional District, which 
district, as thus constituted, was beyond all hope of redemp- 
tion — Democratic. This Act of Apportionment was then 
understood to have been, and was in fact, passed with the 
avowed purpose of legislating him out of Congressional life. 
Without opposition, he received the nomination of his party 
for Representative from that district, and he made one of 
the most vigorous and laborious campaigns of all his public 
career for election, but was defeated at the polls. He, how- 
ever, by an appeal to the people, in the interests of the 
American home and in support of the principle of protection, 
so far and so substantially reduced the overwhelming Demo- 
cratic majority of the district as that he failed of an election 
only by a few hundred votes. His Congressional life was 
by no means all plain sailing. Indeed, some parts of it were 
quite turbulent. Covering most, if not all, of his Con- 
gressional career, the question of a tariff for revenue and 
protection, or for revenue only, was acute, and, on account 
of his prominence and of his well-known views, in respect 
to a tariff for protection, he became the target for the arrows 
of all those who were bitterly opposed to him on that eco- 
nomic question. He was an ardent believer in and a most 
devoted and affectionate lover of the American home, and 
his abiding and deep-seated conviction was that the policy 
of protection, which he so eloquently advocated, was to its 
advantage and in its interest. During his entire public life 
he never faltered or once lost faith in that policy, and upon 
his public record as a protectionist, in a large measure, but 
not entirely, must rest his rightful title to fame. In 1892 his 
party met with a crushing, and, apparently, almost a final 
defeat, and it was claimed that it was all on account of the 
operation of the Revenue Act, which he had prepared and 



1 1 

carried successfully through Congress, yet, in the face of that 
political disaster he never faltered nor wavered in his con- 
victions. His calm demeanor in the midst of what he re- 
garded as temporary defeat is well remembered. His convic- 
tion as to the soundness of his views on the subject was so 
firm, and his faith in the sober second thought of the Ameri- 
can people was so strong that all the while he evidently 
believed that the great mistake, which he honestly thought had 
been made, would be corrected at the earliest opportunity, 
and the history of subsequent events would seem to justify 
his judgment in that regard. It has been claimed that the 
address which he delivered at Buffalo, under the very shadow 
of impending death, and which proved to be his farewell to 
the American people, bears evidence of a change of senti- 
ment on that subject. I think, However, a critical reading 
and a careful analysis of that address will not support such 
claim. A few sentences of the address would seem to be 
sufficient to make this clear and to show his trend of thought. 
He said : " Trade statistics indicate that this country is in 
a state of unexampled prosperity. The figures are almost 
appalling. * * * Our capacity to produce has developed 
so enormously, and our products have so multiplied, that the 
problem of more markets requires our urgent and immediate 
attention. * * * gy sensible trade arrangements, which 
will not interrupt our home production, we shall extend the 
outlets for our increasing surplus. * * * Reciprocity is 
the natural outgrowth of our wonderful industrial develop- 
ment under the domestic policy now firmly established. 
* * * H, perchance, some of our tariffs are no longer 
needed for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries 
at home, why should they not be employed to extend and 
promote our markets abroad? ' Thus it appears that, in so far 
as that address is concerned, he had not abated one jot or 
tittle of his belief in and firm adherence to the doctrine of 
protection, and, if it shall not be thought to be approaching 
even the border line of present-day partisan politics, it might 



12 

be suggested that, perhaps, the country at this particular 
juncture would do well tO' carefully read and consider that 
ever-memorable address, and to imbibe and to act in accord- 
ance with its manifest spirit. 

His whole Congressional life was a conscientious and pains- 
taking devotion tO' the work of upbuilding his country, and I 
do not believe that it is saying too much of him to say that 
he was as successful along those lines as has been any man 
who has appeared in American public life in the last half of 
the Nineteenth Century. The work of hostile legislation, re- 
tiring him from Congress, made him Governor of his State. 

In 1891, by the united voice of his party, he was nominated, 
and, at the election in that year, he was elected to the office 
of Governor of his native State by a plurality of about 20,000. 
His campaign for Governor at this time was made in defense 
of and in upholding the Revenue Act which he had prepared. 
In 1893 he was again nominated to the same office by his 
party, and was again elected by a majority, or, perhaps speak- 
ing more accurately, by a plurality of about 81,000. 

At this time the National Administration and the Congress 
of the United States were Democratic, and distinctively 
Tiostile to him on account of his great prominence on the sub- 
ject of protection. In this campaign, which was exceedingly 
vigorous and rather bitter, his Revenue Act was assailed by 
the opposition from every possible point of view. However, 
when the votes were counted at the close it was discovered 
that his plurality was a little more than four times as large as 
it was when he was elected to the office in 1891. Thus, it 
would seem that in so far as his own native State was con- 
cerned, his abiding confidence in the sound judgment of the 
people on the subject of protection was vindicated. 

His first term of office as Governor began in January, 1892, 
and his second term ended in January, 1896, when for a short 
time he became a private citizen. In his administration of 
this high office the same unselfish devotion to duty was ex- 
hibited. Nothing worthy of special note transpired during 



13 

his incumbency of the office, except daily routine and careful 
attention to the business of the State. 

Up to this time in his life great political preferment and 
honor had been bestowed upon him, and there had been ex- 
pressed by the sovereign will of the people much confidence 
in the wisdom of his statesmanship. But there were still 
greater honors in waiting for him, and very much wider 
fields of public usefulness were opening up before him, and 
inviting him to enter. So prominent had he become in the 
affairs of the nation, and so closely was he identified with the 
one overshadowing question in national politics at that time, 
as that for some time prior to 1896 it had become apparent 
to even the indifTerent observer, as to the trend of public 
thought, that he would be the candidate of his party for 
President in that year. Twice before, namely, in 1888 and 
again in 1892, a nomination by his party to this great office 
had loomed up before him, without his bidding, and each 
time seemed to be within his easy grasp, but he turned it 
aside both times on a point of honor. In each instance he was 
a member of the nominating convention, and had pledged 
himself to a candidate. In the latter year he was Chairman 
of the nominating convention, and at a crucial moment, when 
it seemed almost certain to onlookers and to interested ob- 
servers, and to his friends, that the nomination would fall 
to him, in a most beautiful speech, replete with dignity and 
honor, he placed himself outside of and entirely beyond all 
possibility of a nomination by that convention. What a most 
beautiful tribute this fact is to the utter unselfishness of the 
man, and to his keen sense of honor, even where the goal of 
his ambition was in the balance. As the world of politics 
goes, how many were there then, or has there been since, who 
would have done likewise? His conduct on this occasion and 
the result of the election, and that which followed the election 
in that year, stamped him as the candidate of his party for 
the Presidency in the next National Convention. The nomi- 
nation came to him in the St. Louis Convention in 1896, as 




14 

be desired it should come, if it came to him at all — by the 
free and untrammeled will of his party — and he thankfully 
accepted it. No one who was near to him and saw him on 
that occasion could doubt his high appreciation of the great 
honor which had come to him, and of even the greater re- 
sponsibility which that proffered honor brought with it. 
Then followed one of the most interesting political contests 
ever witnessed in this or any other country, and most master- 
fully did he bear himself through it all. It is scarcely an 
exaggeration to say of that campaign that it was not ex- 
ceeded much, if it was exceeded any, in importance to the 
future destiny of our common country, by the campaign of 
1864, when the very life of the nation seemed to hang 
trembling in the balance. 

Up until the time the Democratic National Convention con- 
vened in Chicago in that year, and was well under way, it 
seemed to be in the public mind a foregone conclusion that 
the question to be submitted to and to be determined by the 
people at the polls in the coming November was whether we 
should have a tariff for revenue and protection, or for reve- 
nue only. The views of the two leading parties upon the 
subject were then well understood and defined, and this con- 
clusion was emphasized by the great prominence of the Re- 
publican candidate upon that question. During the delibera- 
tions of that notable Democratic Convention, a most remark- 
able thing transpired precipitating a question which before 
had not been regarded as at all controlling. Almost in the 
twinkling of an eye, and by a single speech, labeled in large 
head lines — "a cross of gold and a crown of thorns " — 
the question involved was switched, apparently, at least, from 
a tariff for revenue and protection, or a tariff for revenue 
only, to free silver. So much of the Republican candidate's 
public life had been hitherto devoted to a study of the best 
methods of raising revenue to defray the expenses of the 
National Government, and how, at the same time, those 
methods could be best adapted to the protection of American 



labor and capital, employed on the farm and in the factory, 
as that some of his best friends were in doubt, for a time, 
as to whether or not he would be able successfully to meet 
the new situation. These doubts, however, were soon dissi- 
pated. To complicate matters, and as a disturbing element 
in the public mind, the country was then in the very throes 
of a severe commercial and business panic, and was anxiously 
seeking relief therefrom. It was indeed a hopeful and 
promising time for " patent nostrums " and " cure alls." 
During the summer and even into the early autumn the signs 
of the times seemed to point with a good degree of certainty 
to the election of the Democratic candidate, but the position 
taken by him and his party on the question alone of free 
silver could not withstand the assaults of sound argument, 
and a change of public thought began to manifest itself, and 
later in the campaign it became very pronounced. Thanks 
be to the considerate judgment and to the sober second 
thought of the American electorate, the country was saved 
from impending danger. However much we may have then 
been divided in opinion, as to the propriety of establishing 
and firmly maintaining the gold standard, it is now quite 
well within the truth to say that the American people regard 
their escape from national dishonor and disaster as most 
fortunate. Nothing in our recent history, with the possible 
exception of Admiral Dewey's splendid victory in Manila 
Bay, has given us more prominence and commanded greater 
respect in the eyes of the civilized world than did the de- 
liberate judgment of the American people, as recorded at the 
polls, in that famous election. That great victory revealed 
our prowess on the high seas, and that election evidenced our 
good judgment in monetary affairs. Just how much part the 
question of protection played in the contest and contributed 
to the result may never be fully known, but there was then, 
and there is now, a well-grounded belief that it was a positive 
and substantial factor contributing to the result. 

How well William McKinley acquitted himself in and how 
effectively he performed his part of the arduous and exact- 



i6 

ing- labors of that great contest can be best known only to 
those who were with him daily. From the front veranda of 
that little unpretentious, but truly American, home in Canton, 
in which he and his lovely wife had passed their honey- 
moon, and from which their two little ones were borne away 
to their last resting place, — for weeks and even for months, 
during that campaign, he proclaimed to his countrymen and 
to the world the everlasting gospel of sound money and 
national honor. His battle cry ever was, " Close the mints 
and open the factories." 

At the date of his inauguration, March 4, 1897, he was 
confronted with conditions from which immediate relief was 
imperatively demanded, and it was finally afforded. The 
Revenue Act, known in history as the Gorman-Wilson Bill, 
which was brought forward and passed by the preceding ad- 
ministration, and which repealed the McKinley Bill, unfor- 
tunately for the business of the country and for the finances 
of the Government, neither afforded protection nor raised 
revenue. This latter feature, however, was to some extent 
attributable to a general business paralysis. In this situation, 
the Government had been compelled to borrow money, at a 
rather high rate of interest, to meet current expenses. To 
meet these difficulties, and to afford relief from them, an 
extraordinary session of Congress was almost immediately 
called, and before the summer was far advanced an Act 
which afforded protection, and likewise raised revenue, was 
passed by the Congress and approved by the President. Soon 
thereafter business revived and the hum of industry was heard 
in the land, and before the close of his first administration 
the country had reached that state of unexampled prosperity 
of which he speaks in his Buffalo address. 

At this time there existed almost at our door, in the Island 
of Cuba, a condition of affairs which had attracted the 
attention and excited the sympathy of every lover of freedom 
and humanity, and the question of whether or not that con- 
dition either demanded or justified intervention, by force of 



17 

arms, on the part of the United States Government, was 
presented to him for consideration and solution. No one but 
himself could fully appreciate the awful weight of responsi- 
bility which was thus laid upon him, and no one will ever 
fully know of the sleepless nights and anxious moments he 
spent in the solution of the question at hand. He had had 
practical experience in war, and knew the terrible devasta- 
tion and ruin which followed in its wake. The ravages of 
war were on the one hand and the piercing cries of suffering 
and oppressed humanity on the other. Conditions often 
create duties in the life of a nation as well as in that of an 
individual. In this situation with which the country was 
confronted, and as the war clouds were rapidly gathering, 
he carefully looked after and safeguarded the rights and in- 
terests of American citizens in Cuba. It having been brought 
to his attention in May, 1897, by Consul-General Lee that 
there were 600 or 800 Americans on the Island without means 
of support, he, on the 17th of that month, in a message to 
the Congress, recommended that not less than $50,000 be ap- 
propriated for their immediate relief. Such appropriation was 
promptly made by a joint resolution of the two Houses, the 
money to be expended for the purpose indicated, at the dis- 
cretion and under the direction of the President. On March 
9, 1898, by unanimous vote of both Houses of Congress, 
$50,000,000 were appropriated for the national defense, the 
money to be expended at the discretion of the President. This 
action of Congress was, indeed, timely and highly complimen- 
tary to him. On the 15th day of February, 1898, the battle-' 
ship Maine, which was in Havana Harbor on a friendly visit, 
was destroyed by an explosion, and some of the officers and 
many of the crew lost their lives. This unfortunate affair 
very much excited and inflamed the public mind, and the 
demand for war became vigorous and loud. All the while, 
and up to April 11, 1898, every possible effort by diplomatic 
negotiation with the Kingdom of Spain was being put forth 
to bring to the Island a peace which would be just and 



honorable to all concerned, but to no avail. In a message, 
bearing that date, he presented to Congress a most masterful 
review of the facts and of the whole situation, and that mes- 
sage he closed with these words : " I have exhausted every 
effort to relieve the intolerable condition of affairs which is 
at our doors. Prepared to execute every obligation imposed 
upon me by the Constitution and the laws I await your 
action." But I must not further weary you by reciting facts 
of recent history. Suffice it to say that war was inevitable, 
and the question was finally solved in favor of intervention. 
But war was not formally declared until he thought the time 
was fully ripe for it, notwithstanding much ill-advised public 
clamor at the time for it. When the clash of arms came, the 
nation was there with bread in one hand and the sword in 
the other — the former for the oppressed and the latter for 
the oppressor. It is believed that the recorded history of 
nations does not contain another such instance. The blow 
was struck alone for liberty and humanity, and so effective 
was it that within a period of lOO days from the opening of 
hostilities the Kingdom of Spain — one of the oldest and 
proudest nations on earth — was ready to capitulate and was 
asking for terms and conditions of peace. Then came the 
supreme test of the President's wisdom and foresight, and 
statesmanship, in negotiating a Treaty of Peace with Spain. 
He was confronted with living questions of the profoundesi 
moment, of the greatest delicacy and farthest reaching in con- 
sequences, not only to the future welfare of this Republic, 
but to the general peace of the world at large. To the care- 
ful consideration and to the best possible determination of 
these important questions, he brought a sound and well- 
matured intellect guided and controlled alone by a clean con- 
science. He proceeded with the arduous task to its final 
completion, without thought of national — much less of per- 
sonal — aggrandizement. Some of the leaders of his own 
party were not in accord with him upon all phases of these 
questions which were thus thrust upon him by the fortunes 



19 

of war. None, however, for a moment doubted his entire 
honesty of purpose. He did nothing- but for the general good 
of his country, in so far as he was given light to see that good. 
He was, indeed, a true patriot. " The ruddy drops " which 
warmed his heart were highly charged with the sentiment of 
love for the flag, and when the robes of the great office, to 
which he had been twice called by the sovereign will of his 
fellow countrymen, fell from him by the cowardly act of a 
relentless foe of the human race, they were as pure as was the 
penitential tear which " moved the crystal bar of Eden " and 
opened to the Peri the gates of heaven. 

He was strictly an American product, and in him and in 
the history of his life, we have a realization of the possibilities 
of American youth, under our free institutions. He was not 
born to great wealth, nor did it seem likely that great fame 
was to be his. In his boyhood and early manhood he had but 
the ordinary comforts, and none of the luxuries of life. He 
inherited a sound body, a good intellect, an honest, pure heart, 
and a willingness to work and to make the best of his oppor- 
tunities. In his intellectual attainments he made progress 
rather slowly. His advancement was the result of painstaking 
labor. In his pathway to greatness he encountered and over- 
came many obstacles. " The flowers by the wayside he 
plucked, and the thorns he crushed." He was brought into 
contact with the bad as well as the good, but he kept himself 
pure and clean. He was exposed to many allurements, but 
however enticing, he never deviated from the path of recti- 
tude and honor. 

The people of his native State were faithful to him and 
supported him, and the people finally crowned him with the 
highest honor in the gift of mortal man. In his eventful life, 
and in his honorable career, he obtained about all the success 
which men usually covet, except the accumulation of great 
wealth, and for that he had no time, and but little, if any, 
taste and not much ability. His mind was busied with nobler 
themes, and, when at the very zenith of his splendid public 



20 

career, he was permitted to see some of the beneficial results, 
to his country and to his race, of his great labors. Sitting 
at the head of the nation's counsel board in the city of 
Washington, he witnessed such enormous increase in the 
wealth and prosperity of his country as to attract the atten- 
tion of the civilized world. He saw in China the " open 
door " maintained to the trade of all nations on equal terms. 
He upheld and defended the honor and dignity of his country 
everywhere. He was a firm believer in the doctrine that 
" righteousness exalteth a nation," as it does an individual. 
It is believed that by word and by deed he did more to bring 
the North and the South closer together on a common ground 
of mutual good to both than had been done by any man who 
up to that period had held the great office since the close of 
the Civil War. It may, however, be only fair to say, in this 
connection, that his opportunities were greater in this regard 
than were those of any of his predecessors during that period. 
In his public career he did not escape criticism, some times 
just, perhaps, but much more frequently unjust. Who, of 
all the great men and good who have held that great office 
since the foundation of the Government to the present 
moment, has escaped criticism, sometimes most severe and 
unjust? He doubtless made rnistakes, but who has not? In 
my imagination I can hear him softly whispering into my ear,. 
"As you are my friend, and as you love the truth, say not of 
me that I make no mistakes." His, however, were of the 
head and not of the heart. In personal and private character 
he was far above reproach. In all the heated political con- 
tests in which he so actively engaged, the purity of his 
motives was rarely, if ever, impugned, and his honesty of 
purpose was generally conceded. Those who differed with 
him upon public questions made their assaults in the main,, 
not upon him, but upon the policy which he so earnestly 
advocated, and in turn he made his charges not by vitupera- 
tion, but with logic. In thought he was pure, and in 
speech so chaste was he that it is confidently believed by 



21 

those who knew him best and most intimately, that no one 
ever heard him, in private conversation, utter a word which 
might not be spoken in the drawing room, or elsewhere, in 
the presence of ladies and gentlemen of the highest refine- 
ment. No ill word ever escaped his lips to " empoison liking." 
He was a gentleman by right of birth. He had the happiest 
faculty of meeting and greeting people both in public and 
private, and he turned it to good account. How well are re- 
membered the gentle touch, in social greeting, of " the hand 
that is vanished," and the music of " the voice that is still." 
While it was much pleasanter for him to say " Yes " than it 
was for him to say " No," yet when the occasion required 
him to say the latter he could say it without leaving behind 
it a sharp sting. When his mind became convinced upon any 
subject, he maintained and enforced his conviction. As an 
entertainer in his own home he had but few equals, and no 
superiors, as those who have received his generous hospitali- 
ties and have felt the genial warmth of his kindly welcome 
can abundantly testify. No mere pride of position came to 
him by his advancement. He was the same to his friends 
and to all after as he was before his great honors were con- 
ferred upon him. His domestic life was without a blemish. 
As a personal friend, I, perhaps, may be permitted, without 
any impropriety or indelicacy on this occasion, to approach, 
and for a moment linger, near the family hearthstone, and to 
speak reverently of the same, and the happy relations which 
existed there. For more than a quarter of a century, and by 
the sweetest affection and most delicate and considerate at- 
tention, on all occasions, he l^rought the heavenly sunshine 
into the daily life of his invalid wife. If I may be pardoned 
for one personal reference, the last personal interview I had 
with him was at his home in the White House in the city 
of Washington. The occasion of the visit was purely per- 
sonal to each of us, and that visit will remain with me always 
to the end as a sacred memory. He was a man of much 
deeper and stronger religious feeling than was known to the 



22 

world, or even to many of his intimate friends. This fact 
was made manifest in the closing hours of his beautiful life. 
During his illness he had the sweet consolations of religious 
faith. After he was mortally wounded he was permitted, by 
a kind Providence, to live — and without much apparent 
suffering — long enough to furnish the world with one of the 
most striking examples of Christian fortitude and forgiveness 
recorded in secular history. " Good-by ; good-by all. It is 
God's way. His Will, not ours be done." The deep shadows 
of death gathered about him, and he passed into the dark 
valley, chanting the words of his favorite hymn, " Nearer 
My God to Thee." Thus he passed to the other side, and to 
his place among the immortals. We cannot lift the veil — 

" Yet love will dream, and faith will trust, 
(Since He who knows our need is just) 
That somewhere, somehow, meet we must." 

What a splendid public tribute the world paid* him on the 
day of his burial. Nothing exceeding it is recalled in his- 
tory. In his own country the busy wheels of industry stood 
still for a limited time as his body was borne to the " low 
green tent whose curtain never outward swings." Foreign 
countries gave expression of their sympathy. In Westminster 
Abbey — that venerable pile — where lie buried the honored 
dead of a great nation, memorial services were held on that 
funeral day. In this country his name and his memory will 
be honored and revered so long as patriotism and love of 
home have a shrine on this continent. May his spirit in 
heaven, this day, and forever, be one of many guardian angels, 
to watch over the future destiny of his country, which he 
loved so dearly, and to which he gave all he had to give — 
his life. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS^ 

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